Taxis, Speed Among Council Concerns

Among items up for a vote at the Nov. 1 City Council meeting, one ordinance targets out-of-town taxis that compete with city-licensed cabs and another aims to slow traffic on East Second Street to 25 miles per hour.

The combined agenda-fixing/regular meeting is 7 p.m. Tuesday at Clinton Elementary School, 1302 West Fourth Street.

In 2014, the owner of Soria Taxi asked the council to reconsider a ban on his cabs, but a city taxi owners' group is adamantly opposed and protested at the Oct. 11 council meeting (reported by Dan).  The proposed change in the taxi ordinance allows for outside taxis to be taken off the road:

(e) Any vehicle operating in violation of this chapter shall be deemed a nuisance and a menace to the safe and proper regulation of traffic, and any Police Officer upon his or her discretion, may provide for the removal of that vehicle. The owner shall bear the costs of removal and storage which may result from such removal before regaining possession of the vehicle

Measures so far have not deterred Soria from picking up passengers in Plainfield, opponents allege, saying the owner just considers fines part of the cost of doing business. The ordinance amendment will have to pass on two readings before taking effect.

The other ordinance change limits speed on East Second Street. I did not attend the Oct. 11 meeting and heard no discussion of the need for a 25 mph rule, but I do know the street narrows as it goes east. It is a bus route and I have seen it become a tight squeeze when two 59 buses must pass each other.

East Second Street (a) 25 MPH from the center of Park Avenue to the center of Roosevelt Avenue; (b) 25 MPH from the center of Roosevelt Avenue to the easterly Plainfield Line (Terrill Road).

The agenda also includes a discussion item regarding "Loitering & Public Nuisance" at Park Avenue and West Seventh Street.

Pay At the Booth On Lot 6

Attendants at this temporary booth on Municipal Parking Lot 6 will take change only for parking fees while awaiting installation of automated pay stations.

I was so intrigued by the sight of this booth that I forgot to write down how much time you get for a quarter, the preferred coin for transactions. Also I found out when I went to download the photos that I had done something on the smart phone to make the photos back and white.



The parking lot was milled and repaved and will soon be striped. New fencing will also be installed, Public Works Superintendent John Louise said.

Click to see Plaintalker's earlier post on the parking lot makeover.

Democrats Lead Ranks of Plainfield Voters

The number of registered voters here for the Nov. 8 election is an unprecedented 23,321 and 62 percent are Democrats.

Figures released on Oct. 23 by the Union County Board of Elections show 14,524 Democrats, 7,793 unaffiliated (no party declaration) and 930 Republicans, along with smatterings of support for various other parties. To see the complete list, go to Affiliation Statistics and scroll down to page 14 for Plainfield. The key to party codes is on the last page.

The only contested race in Plainfield is for the Third Ward City Council seat. Registered voters in the Third Ward number 6,413. Democrat Charles McRae won the June 7 primary and former Mayor Sharon Robinson-Briggs filed the same day as an Independent, assuring a place on the Nov. 8 ballot. The Board of Elections statistics show the number of voters in each of the city's 34 voting districts. Ward 1 has eight districts, Ward 2 has eleven, Ward 3 has ten and Ward 4 has five voting districts.

Turnout is the key and there are two campaign offices in Plainfield, one on Watchung Avenue led by Plainfield Democratic Party Chairman Mayor Adrian O. Mapp and another on Park Avenue established by Union County Democratic Party Chairman Assemblyman Jerry Green.

Voters should have received sample ballots by now. The tumultuous presidential race is at the top of the ticket, with Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Donald Trump as the main challengers and seven lesser-known candidates for the nation's highest office.

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Commentary on the Candidates' Forum

It was fairly clear at Wednesday's candidate forum that former two-term Mayor Sharon Robinson-Briggs is still not over her long competition with current Mayor Adrian Mapp. She lost a third-term bid to him in the June 2013 primary, but showed up to chide him at many meetings after he took office in January 2014. Now she is running as an Independent against Democrat Charles McRae for the Third Ward City Council seat which Mapp previously held.

This post on a few topics is a follow-up to my earlier post on the forum.

Hiring and Firing: After eight years as mayor, Sharon Robinson-Briggs should have a better understanding of the separation of powers. As a Third Ward council representative, she would be in the legislative branch, not the executive branch and so would have no power over hiring or firing staff, despite her remarks Wednesday.

Economic Development: Robinson-Briggs contrasted the city with Westfield and Cranford and said Plainfield has "more than our allotted number of dollar stores and nail places." Prior to her administration, the city had a cabinet-level deputy city administrator for economic development, but she p but the responsibility in the hands of a middle manager of Community Development who could be found on the city website only by drilling down several steps. Currently Economic Development is on the front page with a link to the deputy city administrator levels.

The Vet Center: Former Mayor Sharon Robinson-Briggs signed a deal with developer Glen Fishman that said the Veterans' Center would be sold to the city for $1 only after all 63 condos on the upper three floors were sold. After years of limited sales, some condos were rented and the proposed center remained an office for the Monarch management. She said Wednesday it was the "council :led by our mayor" that would not allow a fee to be paid to open the center during her tenure. It was not occupied by veterans until Veterans' Day 2014, at which time the former mayor took credit.

The Typo: I was not sure I heard Charles McRae take credit for finding a large error in a past city budget, but Dan today wrote "McRae pointed out that, as a member of the Citizens Budget Advisory Committee, he caught a $1 million+ error in the budget that Robinson-Briggs had submitted (he politely refrained from naming her, only saying it was during a 'previous administration')"

Actually, I found that error and urged then-City Administrator Marc Dashield to take a look. Initially I did not want to "be .part of the story," a grave sin for journalists, but as a blogger it kind of got to me how the error went unnoticed by so many officials who sent the Municipal Data Sheet document to Trenton with their signatures on it. Read "A Bit of a Stretch" from 2008.

The general election is Nov. 8. Check your sample ballot for your polling place and review your choices for president, Congress, freeholders and Third Ward City Council. (In the other council race, Rebecca Williams is running unopposed for the Citywide at-large seat.

As of Oct. 23, there are 23,321 total Plainfield registered voters, including 14,524 Democrats, 12 Green Party, 12 Libertarian Party, five National Law Party,  two Reform Party, 930 Republicans, six Socialist Party, 23 Conservative Party and 7,793 unaffiliated voters. In the general election, you can vote across party lines as you wish.

Enough Already

I tried to post a straight story on the candidates' forum with maybe a commentary to follow later. Then two things happened. I got to a part of my notes where a loaded question was posed to former Mayor Sharon Robinson-Briggs. There was not enough context for the reader or maybe even last night's audience to know what it was all about. Apparently it had to do with a controversial CNN interview from 2011. The mayor's opponent for the Third Ward seat, Charles McRae, alluded to the news tape and stressed the need for positive exposure of Plainfield in the media. I couldn't find the right words for this situation. Maybe Dan will write about it in a comprehensible way..

The other thing was that I had posted pictures on the netbook and then was using the laptop to write the report itself. The laptop lacks memory for photo downloads but I can call up the pictures and text through Blogger. It's a mess and a pain in the keister to work this way. So then one of the photos disappears off the story in the laptop. Back to the netbook to bring up the photo and insert it again. Oy. It's 3:30 a.m. and I quit.

LWV's Third Ward Forum

Sharon Robinson-Briggs, Charles McRae

Third Ward City Council candidates in the only local Nov. 8 contest met the public at the Plainfield League of Women Voters forum Wednesday. 

Moderator Sandra Matsen of the League of Women Voters of New Jersey posed questions from the local league and the audience.

In opening statements, Democrat Charles McRae described himself as a 32-year city resident steadily involved in "organizations that push the city forward," including his block association, PTA, city Zoning Board and Citizens' Budget Advisory Board. He said he is "self-motivated and very energetic" and wants to represent the Third Ward on the City Council. Sharon Robinson-Briggs said she is a registered Democrat running as an Independent and led off with a couple of anecdotes about registering people to vote when she was only six years old and supporting same-sex marriage in her first term as mayor. She also took credit for a veterans' march, a City Hall garden, a clock at Municipal Court and street repairs.

Among the questions:

Q. What have you done to prepare yourself for this position?
Robinson-Briggs named serving two terms as the city's first female mayor, school board service including presidency, affiliations with numerous organizations including her block association, NAACP, Angels for Action and CBAC
"I show leadership and continue to show advocacy for the city of Plainfield." she said.

Democrat Charles McRae, Column A

McRae described founding the first African-American fraternity at Rutgers University, PTA presidency and working to pass a $33 million bond issue to build Washington Community School, serving on CBAC and dealing with a $1.8 million budget omission, presidency of his block association and mentoring 70 young men.

Q. What is the city's single biggest issue and specific steps you will take in your first six months to address it?

"Taxes," McRae said, vowing to work with the administration to find ways to reduce taxes. McRae pledged to "be fiscally responsible and not spend money frivolously."

Independent Sharon Robinson-Briggs, Column C

Robinson-Briggs named crime and unemployment as the most serious issues facing the city and called for establishment of a youth center and a training center to reduce crime and help people become gainfully employed. She urged going back "to things that actually work," such as mentoring, community outreach and a gun buy-back program. 

Asked about her most meaningful contribution to government, Robinson-Briggs cited school and city budgets over 11 years and her "unique experience" as mayor.

McRae said he would bring "civility and knowledge, wisdom and understanding of government" to the council, as well as professionalism and Robert's Rules of Order. He said he would read the agenda, interpret the information and be able to have questions (ready.to ask).

Questions from the audience concerned speeding, infighting among council members, how to assess need for veterans' services, Third Ward needs, youth development, quality of life, uses for the former Muhlenberg hospital site and how to keep the city moving forward. On the last one, McRae said he would work with the administration on "projects we have right now," citing a "new-found zeal " of developers to build in the city. he said one issue is the time it takes to move projects through various board approvals and said a technical review committee now helps streamline the process. He said the council also has an Economic Development Committee that should be working to help the city get good, sound development.

Robinson-Briggs said, "We've had positive investment in Plainfield for several years. We're suburban, urban, rural." 

But she objected to a "gigantic" new project on South Second Street, "across from a house of worship."

"I definitely have to learn more about it," she said. "It's not a good look for Plainfield."

(To be continued)